


The Sameness of Changes

by fictorium



Category: West Wing
Genre: Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:27:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Seaborn should know better than to get involved with Toby's ex-wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sameness of Changes

Andrea, of course, is the instigator. While Toby and Sam have all the words of the English language at their disposal, and a flair for deploying them, it's Andy who knows the shortest route between thought and action. She takes theory and speechifying and turns them into invitations, battle cries of lust that resonate through a room long after her husky voice has imparted them.

Sam doesn't dare to conjure up words like love, not with a heart that bruises like a soft summer peach. He knows it's true though, in that shaded place where he doesn't deflect or pontificate, the part of him that feels. While he's been used to feeling only surges of pride or patriotism lately (and yes, the dead weight of disappointment), his excuse for a personal life in permanent thrall to the campaign and the rigors of office, now he understands excitement again.

When Andy seeks him out, late on a Tuesday evening, he already knows enough to feel nervous. This, after all, is the woman who can reduce the fierceness of Toby Ziegler to an incoherent mess. They had all rallied around Toby as the divorce had quietly gone through, reducing Andy to an outsider in the process. Her loyalty never wavered though, a rallying liberal voice in their corner, scolding them from the left when they wandered too far from the path.

Looking up from his notes on the speech to the Teachers' Union, Sam pulls his glasses off as he greets her. Folding them into his shirt pocket, he awaits the Congresswoman's opening shot, expecting a tirade about their compromises on the Education bill. Instead she smiles at him, her perpetual frost melting with the warmth of it. He sees her, as a woman and not simply his boss's ex-wife, for the first time. Inviting her to sit, Sam relaxes a little as she folds those long legs into the chair by his desk.

"How's your hooker, Sam?"

Had he taken a sip of his coffee then, it would have been sprayed all over his meticulous notes. Toby was generally the soul of discretion, but apparently former spouses formed the exception to that particular rule.

"Her name is Laurie. And she's fine. Passed the bar last week, as a matter of fact. She has some jobs lined up, I think."

Eloquence sacrificed to his own state of disarray, Sam smoothes his tie flat with tense fingers.

"Do you want to get a drink, Sam?"

It's the definition of a dangerous question, the words themselves seem to carry some kind of explosive charge. So many easy excuses are within his reach, from the mountains of paper on his desk to the early morning staff meeting before the President departs for Germany. Even considering acceptance is betrayal, plain and simple. Which is why he's so astounded to hear himself saying yes.

They walk to the bar, the spring evening pleasant enough to make suit jackets sufficient protection. Sam finds the compliments easy to come by, Andy's exploits in Congress are always on his radar. He likes her fearlessness he thinks, almost as much as he likes the way the streetlights catch her hair, like living fire against the darkness of the hour.

She's recognized, of course. Every bar manager and waitress knows the importance of the connected in this company town. A private booth materializes in less than a minute, in a bar that seems to be bursting at the seams with loud patrons. They sit opposite one another, and with a nod from her, two dry martinis are on their way. Sam supposes it doesn't matter, he can't think what else he would have ordered. The solitary olive impaled in his drink makes him think of Josh, for a moment he considers calling the waitress over and asking for another olive, just for the hell of it.

Andy drains her drink with consummate ease, but he stubbornly sips at his own. She surprises him with chat about the Redskins and the Caps, her sporting knowledge on a par with her wonkish love of democratic processes. It's easy to see why Toby would be so in love with her, and the fact that she's even more stunning in the soft light sure doesn't hurt. Time passes pleasantly enough, but when Andy stands to leave, Sam feels himself exhaling with deep relief. No lines crossed and his friendship with Toby can stay intact. He finds it strange that his mentor has been entirely absent as a topic of conversation, but it also spares him the discomfort of feeling like he's selling secrets to the enemy.

Then she leans down towards him, those long strands of red hair brushing against his arm through the thin cotton of his shirt. Sam tries not to react, but the way he bites his lip is purely reflexive.

"Come home with me, Sam."

Just like that, the world no longer makes sense. For two hours everything he thought he knew about the natural order of things has been crumbling until he barely recognizes his own life. He can't ignore the longing in her voice or the sadness in her eyes, and honestly, he was screwed the moment he stepped out of his office; they both knew that from the start.

There's a car waiting to take them to her apartment, though he didn't see her making a call. No more than a gentle squeeze of his thigh passes between them on the journey, but the second they stumble out onto the curb, they seek each other out there on the quiet street. Andy is at once soft and insistent, her mouth every bit as expressive in kissing as it is when reprimanding Republicans. It's almost impossible to break contact, but they manage to put propriety over lust long enough to get through the front door of the building. After all, the last thing Sam needs is another brush with a paparazzo. He honestly believes that this time CJ would just kill him just to make the story disappear.

In the elevator, he's pulling her jacket off, eager to discover just what he's going to hell for. Sam can't get Toby out of his mind, wondering if Toby kissed her like this; if they made up this passionately after every fight. He doesn't want to think about what it means that picturing Andy and Toby together is only turning him on more. They don't dally in the hallway or the living room. Andrea steers him expertly around the furniture as his jacket, his tie, and then his shirt are discarded on the floor. By the time they reach the bedroom they're both naked, and he loves the way Andy pushes him roughly back on the mattress, pausing only to switch a lamp on before she joins him.

He has no issue with her being on top, and the way she straddles him doesn't brook much argument anyway. Sam revels in the gentle weight of her breasts in his hands, focusing his attention on teasing her nipples as she deals with the formalities of protection and then rides him hard until they're both hurtling into climax. When Andy rolls off him, she doesn't instantly kick him out as he had feared. When she eventually turns on her side, she looks back as invitation for him to press his warm body against hers. It doesn't take long for the feel of her soft skin and those killer legs intertwined with his to arouse him once more, and Sam fucks her with just a little less guilt the second time.

Not that he can stay the night, of course. Not in this bed that may also once have been Toby's, a question he doesn't dare frame, much less ask. The farewell kiss is calmer, less frenzied, but Sam can tell from the way she watches him that a repeat performance is more than likely. She can't let him depart without a joke about leaving some money on the nightstand, but he takes it as good-naturedly as it was intended. Relaxation has won over even his most achingly tense muscles, and for an idle second, Sam wonders if prescribed sex might not be a winning addition to the Healthcare package.

Stepping out into the night, he wanders with a goofy smile that just won't be suppressed until he finds a cab to hail. Only when he gets home and sees the picture of the Senior Staff with the President on the mantle, everyone smiling but Toby, does Sam realize just what he's done.

***

The next day, Sam is jumpy and irritable, doing everything in his power to avoid Toby which is as impossible as he might have predicted. He's relieved when CJ pulls him aside after Staff, informing him that he's a last minute addition to the Europe trip, since the President has decided to throw half of his foreign policy speeches out. He checks in with Ginger one last time before the plane takes off, but she informs him that Congresswoman Wyatt is not among the pile of pink message slips already piling up for him.

Two weeks pass before she calls, a terse invitation to dinner that he doesn't dare refuse. It's more of a late supper, in a private room at some French place he thinks he might have been to before. He'd have been fine with a taco stand for the chance to see her again. She's perfectly at ease in person though, pressing a discreet kiss to his cheek when he joins her at the restaurant. Later, hot and tangled in her sheets, Andy leans up on one elbow and fixes him with her most serious stare.

"I have a proposal for you."

 Sam heard the words clearly enough, and while he understood them on an elementary level it was doing nothing to explain them to his addled mind. Andy was suggesting, in fact positively _encouraging_ the idea of Toby joining them. In bed. Or against the wall. Or on the dining table and the other new surfaces that had been explored in the course of the evening. Sam feels his head reeling, but can't blame it on sexual exertion.

By rights, if the world were the right way up, he would laugh in her face or storm out in disgust. It's just that, well, he can't. He's paralyzed by fear at the thought that Andy can somehow divine his darkest fantasies, the depraved thoughts that get him off in the shower on particularly frantic mornings. He won't be surprised if she's also picked up on the recurring dream of being tied to a chair, entirely at the mercy of his lover. She already seems to be on to the fact that sometimes his mind wanders enough to consider what it would be like to have Toby blowing him, or be spreadeagled on his own bed with Toby pounding fervently into Sam's ass.

Those thoughts have always been private for a reason, damn it.

Andy doesn't see what the fuss is about, she confesses after a while (after a third drink to ease the oppressive atmosphere in the bedroom) that she eked a confession of that very fantasy from Toby in the last months of their marriage. She also makes the terribly salient point that it might be the only way Toby will ever forgive Sam for screwing his ex-wife.

***

Oh, it's as awkward as hell at first. Andy shows up in the Communications bullpen, only this time it's Toby's door that her knuckles assault. There's a hushed conversation with occasional bursts of subdued yelling that Sam can't make out through the wall, but he knows enough to guess. Andrea leaves with a swirl of her raincoat, her knuckles white as they grasp her purse. Sam is almost foolish enough to follow, but is frozen to his seat when Toby appears in the doorway.

"You."

In that one word Toby is judge, jury and executioner. Sam feels the avalanche of guilt that he's barely managed to outrun come tumbling down around his ears. It's the _hurt_ in Toby's eyes that destroys him, the expression that says while Toby expects the world to be filled with liars and morons at every turn, he still expected so much better of Sam.

A week goes by and Toby's thunderous expression never varies. He works alone, assigning Sam pieces to write by memo and sneaking in to edit copies with furious red pen strokes once Sam has gone home. Sam tries calling Andy, but she's campaigning to get an amendment passed and that barely leaves her time to eat or sleep, let alone soothe his troubled conscience.

Then the storm passes, and Toby shows up in Sam's office just before ten with an invitation to drinks. Not daring to rock the decidedly fragile boat, Sam grabs his jacket and follows without a word.

When the car pulls into Toby's street, Sam realizes that the decision is made. The choice feels pleasantly irreversible, as though the energy expended in making it has created this entirely new state. _We have always been at war with Eurasia_ and Sam Seaborn has always been spending his nights in the spartan surroundings of Toby Ziegler's bedroom.

It's so easy to forget there ever was a before.

That first night they laugh a little too loudly, fiddling with collars and cuffs as they attempt to seem at ease with this most unusual development. The habitual tension that occupies any room containing both Andy and Toby seems stretched to breaking point with the additional presence of Sam, and every other minute he wonders if he shouldn't be bolting for the sidewalk and forgetting any of this ever happened.

No martinis or elegant glasses for them now, just the solid cold lumps of beer bottles in their hands. Equidistant points on the sharpest of triangles, they eye each other warily. The novelty of being a pawn in their endless, fruitless war is suddenly unappealing to Sam and so he crosses the limited space between the sofas to kiss Andy firmly on the mouth. His reward is to feel Toby grasping his arm, and as Sam pulls back he's expecting to be slugged, not kissed.

But kiss him Toby does. The beard is tickling, foreign to Sam's limited experience. His college experiments were clean-shaven jocks and overly effeminate boys with the kind of soft skin most women would murder for. Toby is initially as difficult to kiss as he is to get to know. His lips are firm but defensive, resisting Sam's bullish attempts to deepen the contact between them.

Andrea is not known for boundless patience or allowing herself to be ignored, but when she insinuates herself between them, neither man seems to mind. Sam watches her kiss Toby, the first chance he's had to really observe them as anything approaching a couple, since all he's really known of them is the importance of leaving the room or removing valuables when their arguments begin.

She makes for a fantastic choreographer, providing coordination and cohesion when their initial fumbling embraces need a little direction. Andy takes her share of their devotion gladly, the willowy grace of her body the perfect contrast to Toby's compact strength and Sam's tanned leanness. They make a fascinating picture and Sam has to keep reminding himself not to just stop and _watch_ them all together.

Somewhere between the rough scraping of Toby's beard across his abdomen and Andy's mouth at his neck, Sam loses the ability to form thoughts. He's never known so much sensation at once and it overwhelms him in the most delicious ways. Later, when he's coming in Toby's mouth, Sam doesn't know whose name he yells against Andy's neck. All he knows is that he wants more, always. There's never going to be enough of feeling like this, and he wonders if wanting so much more is why conventional relationships have always failed him.

It sets a pattern that lasts through the balmy summer nights and the first crisp leaves of Fall. Schedules dictate their routine: when a vote keeps Andy on the House floor, Toby and Sam have learned to seek each other's company. Sometimes no more than sharing two slices of pie and cold milk over their latest redrafting, other nights the silent, almost desperate strokes of need, want and stolen intimacy.

Sometimes nostalgia wins out. Sam will see the electric currents pass between the ex-spouses over the table and excuse himself before dessert. He never feels banished exactly, but there's a chill in his bones each time he returns to his Georgetown apartment alone. They swore never to get used to this, not to fall into that threatened trap of taking these thrills and sated desires for granted. Whatever it is, whatever it isn't, there's no disputing that it works. Their pact of mutually assured destruction makes the trust between them almost absolute, and if he really thinks about it, Sam figures that might just be the sexiest part of it all.


End file.
